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The Last Woman!

So, it happened a few days ago. The last woman was eliminated from this years event. *Gasp* *Shock!* *Horror!*

Okay, maybe that’s a bit much, but I’m not really sure why it’s a huge deal? When women make up a whopping 3% of the field, outlining how women do at a tourney like this is fairly silly in my mind. It’s like breaking it down by race, orcountry or any other arbitrary measure. And I’ve never seen “last Italian eliminated from WSOP today! And just to round out my news articles, the biggest cash an Italian has ever made at the WSOP Is 140,333 in 2003″. It’s an archaic thing to write about.

There are some amazing female poker players out there, and here is a list of female WSOP bracelet winners over the years….

Donna Ward was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1991 $500 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud
Jennifer Tilly won a World Series of Poker bracelet (and $158,625) in the Ladies’ No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em event,
Linda Ryke–Drucker was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1987 $500 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud.
Maria Stern won the 1997 World Series of Poker $1,500 event
Phyllis Kessler was a World Series of Poker champion in the 2003 $1,000 Ladies – Hold’em and Limit 7 Card Stud.
Rose Pifer was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1985 $500 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud.
Christina Pie was a World Series of Poker champion in the 1999 $1,000 Ladies – Limit 7 Card Stud.

Annette Obrestad (born September 18, 1988) is a Norwegian poker player. Obrestad is the youngest person to ever win a World Series of Poker(WSOP) bracelet and in 2007 was considered to be one of the best online multi-table tournament players in the world. ^{Linda Johnson WSOP) bracelet in 1997 in the $1,500 seven-card razzspan style=”color: #000000;”> event.
Susan J. Isaacs finished tenth in the $10,000 hold’em main event in 1998. (and won back to back bracelets for the ladies 7 card stud events)
Jennifer C. Harman}

Annie Duke won a bracelet in the 2004 World Series of Poker $2,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Event and was the winner of the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions, where she earned the Winner-Take-All prize of $2,000,000



So there you have it…some great female poker players…i think that list speaks for itself!

Poker Inside Buckingham Palace!

Image by love not fear via Flickr

There are all sorts of reports coming out that a former royal protection officer (who incidentally is accused of a £3 million betting and property scam) is saying that colleagues played poker and traded porn while working at Buckingham. 

First of all, i think it’s hilarious that the headline is “POKER PLAYED AT BUCKINGHAM!” and not “Guards traded porn at Buckingham!”   That aside, i wonder what kind of games they would get up to.  And if this guy is cheating his colleagues out of £3 million, do you think he’d be in on that game?  Something smells fishy here. 

Honestly i don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t do something personal during downtime at work.  And someone running a poker game is, in my opinion, similar to euchre or any other card game.  Honestly, if you want to be outraged at something, be angry at the porn.  Porn at work is a definite no no…..but poker at work?  I’d be in on that during my lunch break. The game would likely be more for fun than for money, but you could probably get some really sweet variations or play some games you’ve never played before (crazy pineapple, 7 card murder, razz…)

You can read the “Outrageous!” story here….

Cash Grab!

Recently the political system in the UK has been going through a crisis of confidence.  This has been driven by insane spending by members of parliament, including ministers using their expense accounts to refurbish a private residence, pay off their mortgage and other items that regular expense account definately do not cover.

It seems that in a bid to recoup some of the excess the government is rolling out a new taxation system for poker that could jeopardize many poker rooms all across the UK.  In the old system a poker room would have to pay VAT, or essentially 15% on earnings from poker.  This left room for a modest profit for the casino.  The new system is based on a sliding scale of charges.  The minimum being 15% and it goes to a maximum of 50%.  That means that the more money taken in by a given casino in a poker room, the more they have to pay in taxes for that room.  The tax doesn’t take into consideration operating costs so clubs that fall into the top bracket have to pay 50 percent of their poker revenues in taxes, then pay all their staff, rent and running costs out of the remaining 50 percent.

It is being speculated that because the cost of going to a “legal” poker room could go up (in fees to help reduce the impact of the high tax), and the fact that police are lax is clamping down on illegal poker venues, players will start to choose the illegal venue option first.  It avoids the high cost and seems fairly low risk.

The laughable par about all this is that the Junior Minister at the treasure that is responsible for the legislation was not fully aware of the way player to player poker operates, and now that things are moving on the legislation, is unable to inform his superiors about his mistake.  

Martin Ramskill, General Manager of the Grosvenor Victoria casino commented on the situation by saying, “The government appears to have misunderstood the effect of its actions as it said it wanted the budget to be tax neutral. By taking away the VAT rate and introducing normal gaming duty to poker rooms, it could mean that charges might now need to be raised to try and cover the extra costs. This may well have the effect of driving poker players to illegal card rooms that don’t pay taxes and may even create a demand for such venues, which runs counter to its stated aim of keeping criminality out of gaming.”

American Government Freezing Online poker earnings

I realize American poker isn’t top priority for British players, however i think this is worth mentioning because of the motivation behind the actions.  In the states, online poker is outlawed.  So, they cannot usecredit cards, paypal, or any other method to get money online.  They have to wire money to the casino, and the, in turn, get their winnings wired back to the states.  Because of the way things are set up, these winnings are not taxed, and neither is the online casino.

Recently Federal prosecutors have frozen tens of millions of dollars in payments owed to online poker players.  I don’t know what that means for that money, weather or not it’s confiscated, or if over a long period of time it will be returned to them.  However, it appears that a new law proposed by Congressman Barney Frank would legalize and tax the online poker world in the USA.  This is problematic as it sets a president.  If the US proposes to tax online poker the same way they tax lottery winnings (28%, and it would also be counted toward income tax, so you would lose more than half of the winnings after the tax man is done with you), and other countries start to take the same steps, we could see a drastic change in the way online poker works.

It’s not necessarily the tax that is problematic, it’s the motivation for outlawing gambling in the first place.  The government saw a hugerevenue machine that was not generating any income for them.  So instead of working with the online casino’s to make it work for the US, they took a “moralhigh ground ” stance, and outright made it illegal.  Now, 2 years later, they are systematically quashing the more serious players by freezing their money, and bringing poker back to the states, with no real incentive to actually play.  When you are being taxed up the wazoo (yeah, i said wazoo), poker becomes a -e/v game.

And just think….if the British government needs a cash infusion, they just may follow the example the US has set.

Pokerstars Record Breaking Weekend

This past weekend many records were shattered for online poker in general and for Pokerstars.com.  The biggest record of all was Pokerstars set a new record for most people playing in an online poker tournament when their $500k guaranteed tournament reached its capacity of 35,000 people!  A player under the alias stan34powa went on to win the tournament and the $30,000 that was guaranteed for first place.  Not bad for an $11 investment!  This record will go down in the Guinness Book Of Records but you can guarantee that Pokerstars will do their best to shatter it again in no time!

The next big record that was shattered at Pokerstars was the most people ever online at a single poker site.  At approximately 3:30 PM EST yesterday, Pokerstars had a total of 250,540 people on their site playing poker!  This is twice their daily average and a HUGE accomplishment for the site and online poker in general.  I guess the whole “global recession” isn’t slowing down poker players!

Pokerstars also set some personal records with their big Sunday tournaments.  The Sunday warm-up had its biggest field ever with 5,836 players and a prize pool over $1.1 Million Dollars.  Also, the Sunday Millions tournament guarantee was raised from $1.5 Million to $2.5 Million, but this was shattered again when 16,260 people registered bringing the prize pool up to $3,252,000!  In the end, a player from Sweden under the alias lp_SakiSaki took 1st place and $331,378.80 in cash without a chop at the final table!

If you aren’t playing at Pokerstars.com, then you really don’t know what you are missing!

Devilfish is the new Gordon Ramsay

I can read Dave Ulliott’s mind right now… “If Gordon Ramsay can do it, why can’t I?”

Well Dave, you can’t. And more people are going to watch a “Kitchen Nightmare” show than a poker show. Obviously Dave didn’t get this memo and on the show, attempts to goad, scream, and humiliate 4 poker hopefuls. He bankrolls (supposedly from his own bankroll) them and coaches them through the ranks by starting them at an online poker site.

The show, titled “How to Become a Poker Millionaire” is airing on ITV Wales and will not be seen on US television. The ultimate goal of the show is take the last player standing and send them to the WSOP Main Event next year. It’s a last man standing type show with one player being eliminated weekly.

Dave stated, “Poker players won’t have seen anything like this before. It was a real boot camp for the participants and I took no prisoners. There’s laughter and tears, good poker and bad poker, and viewers will get to learn many of the tricks of the high-stakes poker trade which took me years and a lot of money to learn.”

Never seen anything like this before? Dave, we hope we never see anything like it again!

Sky Poker Launches 2 New Shows

Sky Poker has announced that they will be launching 2 new shows: “Stacked Up” and “Sky Poker Unlimited“.

Stacked Up – Will be a poker show focused entirely on cash game play.  Players will be divided in teams of 3 which will have Professional Players, Sky Poker presenters, and novice players.  The teams who show the largest increase in their bankroll will be declared the winners.  The first shows will be hosted by Tony ‘Tikay’ Kendall and Norman Pace but soon after some of the current hosts from Sky Poker will take over.  The show will be aired every Tuesday at 8.00 pm GMT on Sky Poker Channel 846.

Sky Poker Unlimited -This show will be an all around show for the virtual tables at Sky Poker.  The presenters will visit cash games, multi-table tournaments and even sit n go’s to analyze the players’ play.  The show will be hosted by many of the current Sky Poker personalities and feature all the best tournaments on Sky Poker, including The Open, Velocity and The Five 0.

With all Sky Poker shows, you can play on TV through their Website SkyPoker.com.  If you don’t already have an account visit our Sky Poker Promotional Code page for details on how to get 500 Sky Points FREE!

Competition In The Internet Poker Market

Internet Poker has experienced steady growth over the past five years as new online poker sites continue popping up on a monthly basis hoping to attract new players and become the next Party Poker. With all of the competition in the current marketplace, many of the top Internet Poker sites are having to offer players extremely large bonuses or cutting edge software to differentiate themselves in this competitive space. The reality of all this competition is that operator margins are becoming increasingly smaller as the market continues to grow, however this creates a great market for the consumer or player who wishes to maximize their return when depositing at a poker site.

The Bodog gaming brand is probably the most notorious for their massive bonus offers. Bodog ran a very long promotional campaign whereby they offered new players a 10% unlimited bonus, meaning that players were free to deposit as much as they liked with no maximum restrictions. Altough Bodog has since discontinued this promotion, it goes to show you how much sites are willing to shell out in an effort to attract new players. Information on current Bodog bonuses can be found on our BodogPoker Review.

Another site that has really stood out from the competition over the past year is PKR poker. PKR launched the first scalable 3D poker room and has since experienced massive growth by offering a video game style poker room in a 3D atmosphere to the poker market. On the promotion side, PKR has rolled out some large player bonuses available to players using various PKR Poker Codes. PKR also went one step further and introduced their casino brand this year to the market with then hopes of further increasing their share of the 3D gaming space. Our PKR Casino Review details all of the casinos features including games offered and best bonus codes.

Overall, it is evident that the internet poker market is reaching its peak level of competition and that new operators are forced to dream up unparalleled promotions and bonuses to attract and retain new players. As the market continues to grow and expand, we expect to see some exciting promotions become available to the market so stay tuned.

William Hill Poker Offers Insta-Play No Download Poker

William Hill Poker has announced the launch of an insta-play poker client for their poker room which allows players to access the website remotely from any computer and play without having to download the traditional poker software.

This is a great step for William Hill in providing their poker players with an easy and accessible way to play poker on the site without the hassle of download the online poker software. All you have to do to use the no download version is go to the William Hill Poker website and press play instantly to be connected.

The William Hill Poker room also offers players a great $500 monthly loyalty bonus in addition to their other fantastic promotions. Check out William Hill Poker Here.

Betfair Poker Software Glitch Pays Players Big Time

Betfair Poker is scrambling to retrieve what is estimated to be close to £1,000,000 which was paid out into player accounts due to a small glitch in their poker software. The glitch was related to the sit and go poker tables on Betfair and apparentely if all players went all in on the first hand, the winner would receive 1st place prize money and all other players that lost would receive 2nd place prize money. Once the glitch was discovered groups of players started abusing it and quickly moving up the limits in an attempt to amass as much money as possible. The group of players quickly withdrew this money and Betfair is now in the process of trying to recover it.

The incident is said to involve approximately 20 players on the Betfair site although no official numbers have been released. Betfair declined to comment on the issue which was first brought to public attention on Jan.12th of this year. Currently none of the players are facing charges and rumours have suggested that a large portion of this money is locked in various Paypal accounts, although some of the players have withdrawn through bank transfers which at this point are non-reversable.